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Alice gets to her feet and leaves us alone.
“And we’re together. I only said we’d keep it on the back burner until the election,” he says.
I laugh out, “Back burner.”
“You know what I mean,” he stammers. The saddest part is I do know. He sounds just like the rest of them—like me before I considered life without a campaign attached to it.
“You’ll see, Brooklyn. A month from now with the polls closed—”
“My dad will be a Senator, and the scrutiny will only get harsher,” I cut in. “There will never be a convenient time for his daughter to date the boy whose dad he helped earn parole. That story will exist forever, and we either walk right through it or let it set the rules.”
That’s the part he doesn’t see. I’ve seen it far too often, though. I watched my brother deal with it during his own military service, the constant comparisons to our father, especially when he didn’t measure up. My mom is graded on every charity she supports, each event she hosts—hell, on the color she wears for an interview. Everything in my circle is subjected to criticism, and most of it isn’t kind.
“I have to get changed,” I say, hauling the folds of my gown into the dressing room with me.
I’m struggling to get a full breath as I step out of the gown, and I accidentally cut myself on the sharp point of one of the pins in my side. I dab the small trail of blood up with the tip of my finger and suck it away, the sting of my frustration threatening to spill down my cheeks. I hurry into my jeans and rush my shirt over my head, putting it on backward and inside out. My urgency is pointless, and deep down I knew it would be. The second I step out of the dressing room, Cameron is gone. My purse and keys sit alone in the red velvet chair he should be in.
“It’s a beautiful dress,” Alice says behind me in a reverent tone.
“It is,” I say, my focus on the door and the empty sidewalk outside it. “It really is.”
Chapter23
Brooklyn
My eyes still have not adjusted from the hot glare of the lights and the flashes that hit my pupils every six seconds on my way into the ball. Every person I greet is covered by a scorched blob in the middle of my vision.
“It’s a gorgeous dress,” one woman says. My mom gave me a tip for most of the people here, and I’m pretty sure this is the wife of the big development group looking to revitalize one of the old squares in the southside of the city.
I curtsy.
“Thank you so much. I love yours,” I respond.
My mom coughs at my side, and I don’t understand why until the woman moves away from us and I see she’s wearing a black suit with very little fanfare. She could step in and join the wait staff and look underdressed.
“I’m sorry. I still can’t see,” I say through my plastered-on smile.
“I know. Me too,” she mutters next to me under the same expression.
We never know when someone is going to take a photo, so at events like this, it’s imperative to constantly be on. The moment you aren’t, that’s when they pounce and that’s the one that goes to the tabloids.
I brought Morgan and Lily to the ball with me for a girls’ date night. It was fun dressing Lily up, though she would probably argue that it was more fun for us than her. The boys had their big rival game today. I couldn’t go because I had to help my mom with a few last-minute details for the gala, but Lily and Morgan went. Apparently, Cameron was the MVP of the game. I wish I could have seen it. I wonder if he would have walked off the field to keep a promise to my dad.
It isn’t fair for me to put the blame on him completely. He’s trying to be respectful, and he’s grateful for my father’s support for his dad. But I feel because my dad did the right thing, it doesn’t mean he deserves an award for it. It was the right thing to do, whether Cameron does him a favor in return or not. More and more, I realize I’m not made out for politics. I love policy, and I love doing good, but the glad-handing and side deals make my stomach hurt.
“We should get inside,” my mom says, looping her arm with mine.
We wave to the press and meet up with my father, and I let the two of them walk in together for a few photos by my dad’s staff. I linger on my own until Lily and Morgan sneak around the rows of tables inside the Ocean Club to stand by my side.
“I have never been to anything like this,” Lily gushes. She spins in the blue satin dress Morgan and I forced her into, and the skirt swings out as she does. She’s gleeful, and I’m jealous yet happy for her.
“I have to admit, this party is pretty fire, Brook. And I have been toa lotof these things,” Morgan says.
I smile, taking some of the credit for the last-minute touches I helped my mom complete. Rather than spending money on decorations that would only get thrown away, I convinced my mom to work with a florist friend of Alice’s who builds living sculptures out of greens and petals and the most vivid flower arrangements. Everything is locally sourced, and I spent the morning making placards to post around the displays that detail what each plant or flower is and where it can be found in Massachusetts.
I follow my friends down the lit corridor to the grand ballroom where a band is playing to an empty dance floor. Morgan takes the initiative, along with both Lily and my hands, and drags us out there to get things moving. It’s a cover of a Taylor Swift song, so most everyone who enters the room instantly recognizes it and a few find their way to the floor to join us. After one song, there’s a steady flow of people moving on the floor, and the rest are power guests making connections throughout the room.
“I have to take my shoes off. Just for a minute. My feet want to die,” I say to my girlfriends, ditching them for the comfort of a chair. After a little whining, they disappear into the growing crowd dancing to a mash-up of top hits.
